


We're Different Now, and That's Okay.

by GiannaQueenofBelgium



Category: Agents of SHIELD - Fandom, Marvel
Genre: Agents of SHIELD, Angst, Death, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Hydra, leo fitz x oc - Freeform, leo fitz x orginal female character, mothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 08:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4094443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiannaQueenofBelgium/pseuds/GiannaQueenofBelgium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gianna Bosko has been imprisoned, tortured, verged on a psychotic breakdown more than once, and has now lost her father. Leo Fitz has been betrayed by one of his closest friends, thrown into the bottom of the ocean, and struggles with just about everything.<br/>They're both different from what they once were, changed people trying to get a grip on the real world. There isn't exactly time for romance in their lives, but that doesn't mean it won't try to blossom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're Different Now, and That's Okay.

**Chapter One**

Everything was slowly falling into place.

 SHIELD was successfully working its way up from the ground after the devastating reappearance of HYDRA and under the command of a new Director, things were going smoothly. Coulson had his best men and women on the job, working tirelessly to put the pieces back together whilst taking out the few remaining HYDRA operatives that still drew breath. One of the top priorities was rescuing captive agents and finding those who had fallen off the grid. In the first weeks of the rebuild Coulson’s team, headed by Melinda May, found a locker in a seemingly abandoned HYDRA locale. Tied to the walls and bound with chains were five agents who had found out HYDRA just days before the attack in DC. In the end only two lived, one left for home and never made contact with SHIELD again, and the other stayed with the team; fixated on revenge for what HYDRA had done to her.

 

“Gianna!” Fitz yelled as he rushed down the hall, trying not to trip over his own feet. “Where is that girl?” He grumbled and typed furiously on his tablet. He went down the halls, looking between his screen and the corridor as he searched for the agent.

“Gi-“He began to yell again.

“Yeah?” Came a mumbled response. He turned his head and found her sitting at one of the white, round tables in the dining hall. She had “The Goose Girl” in one hand, a glass of apple juice in the other an oatmeal-raisin cookie sticking out of her mouth. Her dishwater blonde hair was pulled up and out of her face and held on top of her head in a lopsided bun that sprouted unruly hairs at its base. She stared at Fitz waiting for a response. He mumbled for a moment, trying to remember what he needed her for, it felt as if things just slipped from his mind and fell out from his ears.

“Oh!” He exclaimed, “Coulson wants everyone in the, the room,” He couldn’t find the word “briefing” but she nodded her head in understanding. “He says it’s, its-“Urgent evaded him. Therapy for the brain damage he’d received when Ward dropped him and Jemma to the bottom of the ocean was helping to clear his speech and improve motor control, but he was still suffering to get through simple sentences. It drove him absolutely mad. The hallucinations of Jemma always being around weren’t helping him feel any saner, so he kept those to himself. Currently she stood next to him, talking about cookies and how they should make a batch together and how much that would be, he ignored her.

“Gotcha,” She said through the cookie after shoving the rest into her mouth. Gianna brought her book and apple juice along as Fitz led the way to the briefing room. The walk was silent other than the tap of Leo’s fingertips against his screen and the munching of Gianna eating her cookie. They were fine with no talking however; each had been through so much therapy in the last couple of months that not having to talk was a relief.

Before her imprisonment and torture by the hands of HYDRA Gianna had been outgoing, always a smile on her face, a bright young star among the troops. Fury watched her from a distance, asking questions in private to her SO, keeping tabs on her development as an agent. She had been brought into SHIELD after being discovered and placed on the Index as an 084, after a lengthy interrogation Gianna proved herself to be a resource. Although her powers were not always present and only showed themselves during times of high stress, her assets were tantalizing to Fury. There was a chance that Gianna could pull herself up through the ranks and make herself a critical member of the Avengers- that is if she could harness her gifts. To test her strengths and dissolve her weaknesses her SO, agent Sitwell, sent her on a mission in northern Canada. This however was a ruse, a plan to get her powers in the hands of HYDRA scientists, and she found herself locked up in a cold bunker, being tortured so that her powers would make an appearance. Three people died because of her, because of what she was.

 

“Good to see you’ve joined us,” Coulson said as Fitz and Gianna entered the room quietly, finding a spot in the back to sit. The Director cleared his throat before starting his speech. While he spoke Skye brought up images that correlated to his dictations on the screen behind him. There was an outpost near Guam that held an encampment of HYDRA operatives, Intel proved that this was an unsecure base where, surprisingly, a large cropping of tech was being stored.

“Oooh! I bet my life, I bet my life on you,” A phone sang out. Everyone went silent, turning in their chairs until they located the epicenter of the interruption. Gianna turned too, looking around in confusion before it dawned on her that it was her own phone singing Imagine Dragons. But, that couldn’t be right; there were only two people on the whole planet with the number.

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” She apologized profusely before grabbing her phone from her back pocket and excusing herself to the corridor outside. If it had been her other phone, the one just about everyone on base could call, she would have hung up and stared at the floor ashamed until the meeting was over. But this was her other cellphone, there was no way Gianna wouldn’t be answering. A glass window separated her from the others and they all watched intensely, some agents with aggravation clearly painted on their faces.

“M-mom?” she spoke quietly, one hand holding the phone up to her ear and the other coving her mouth so as not to cause further disruption. Gianna nodded her head and didn’t say anything other than the occasional “alright, sure”. Fitz watched her; although they rarely conversed he spent more time with her than the others. That may have been because their bedrooms were directly next to each other, or that her training room was close to his lab, but it was most likely because Gianna was broken; just like he was.

He didn’t like to think of himself as broken, but it wormed its way into Fitz’s brain none the less. He liked even less the impeding thought that Gianna was broken, it seemed so harsh, such an awful thing to think of her. But it was difficult not to. When there was news that five agents had been found he’d watched Coulson look through their files, trying in some small way to prep for their return. Leo was just as broken hearted as everyone else that only two survived and only one returned to SHIELD’s fold. But the worst part of it all was the recorded interviews added to Gianna’s file. She was being “interrogated” by three scary looking agents, but she didn’t take a moment of it too seriously.

“What’s that?” She asked as they produced a red herring truth serum. She had her feet kicked up on the steel table stained little drops of blood here and there, arms crossed across her chest.

“This will make you answer any question we ask you,” said an agent that looked worryingly like Grant Ward. The sight of the lookalike made Fitz’s skin crawl and he ground his teeth with hate.

“Oh,” She burst out laughing, throwing her head back with a wide open mouth and howling with laughter. It took her a moment to stop, but when she did it was only a second later until she was overcome by giggles.

“Why aren’t you taking this seriously?” Fake Ward slammed his fist down on the table and she breathed out her nose a little chuckle. Her eyes shone. Leo had never seen eyes shine like that before, sure he’d read about it in books and heard about it, but he never saw eyes _glimmer_ before.

“Because, well, I don’t see the point of using a truth serum on someone who’s only been telling the truth to you. Seems a little, useless, ay?” She smirked, one dimple appearing below the right side of her mouth. That was the only time Fitz had ever seen Gianna smile like that. He had a gut feeling she never would again.

 

They found her bound to the concrete wall with heavy chains and gagged with a rolled up sock, her hands wrapped in layers of bloodied cloth and eyes covered with a tear soaked bandana. She remained unresponsive for nine days, eating as little as she could and barely drinking. Then, suddenly, like nothing had happened she began to speak and eat whole meals again. Gianna acted as if nothing happened, as if she had not been tortured to the point a scientist named Helen Cho with an new invention known as the “cradle” had to be called in to help heal her wounds. Even with the synthetic skin holding her back together you could see the scars through her thin, white T-shirts she often wore, little lines of raised flesh that proved she’d never be the same, that she had been changed in that bunker.

 

“Alright Mom, I have to go now, I’ll see you then.” She was quiet, but her voice reverberated off the bare walls and almost echoed in the briefing room. Slowly she raised her arm down and tucked the phone into her back pocket. Gianna was very still, staring at the ground, expressionless. Then, without warning, her knees buckled as a sob wracked her chest. Everyone in the briefing room jumped, surprised at the loud screech from the always quiet agent.

“Oh my god,” Skye leaped from her spot next to Coulson and raced out of the room, Fitz close at her heels. She hovered around the girl momentarily before kneeling and putting her arms around her. Gianna flinched and remained very stiff as she attempted to stifle the sobs. It was little use though, the news she received had shaken her out of the cocoon of numbness she’d been using to protect herself from emotions these past weeks. Pretending to be better, to be forgetting the torture, the pain she’d felt in that cold little room was not an option.

“Skye, take Agent Bosko to her room, we’ll finish the briefing later.” Coulson said as he came out of the briefing room, people were peering from the glass divider and watching the agent on the floor, not realizing that her entire world was falling apart. Skye put her hands under Gianna’s arms and raised her off the ground; Fitz put one hand on her back and took her hand in his own, helping to bring the crying girl to her bedroom.

When they reached her room she fumbled to get the door open before collapsing halfway to the bed. She had one hand groping at the bed while the rest of her lay on the floor, overwhelmed with mourning.

“Gianna, what’s happened, please can you tell us?” Skye sat down on the ground and rubbed her back nervously. Fitz stepped around her and pulled the blankets back from her bed, fluffed up a pillow and then attempted to nudge her off the floor. Skye helped and in the end they got her tucked into bed, her face buried deep in a feather pillow and her whole body shaking. Skye sat on the edge of Gianna’s bed, holding her hand and trying her best to find out what happened.

“I’ll um,” Leo stuttered and felt his heart drop, “tea, I’ll make some tea.” He quickly excused himself and quietly shut Gianna’s bedroom door. He stood outside for a long moment, breathing heavily and allowing his hands to shake without shame. Then Fitz found his way to the community kitchen, numbly opened the cupboards and found his box of Herbal tea. For some reason he couldn’t find the kettle, it took him even longer to finish with the tea for someone had placed the silver kettle in the wrong cupboard.

He grew up in a family where tea made everything better. In second grade, after he got home from the doctor with a blue cast on his arm to help heal the two broken spots, his mother made him tea and sugar cookies. When he was ten and it was official his dad wouldn’t be coming back home he made tea for his mother. They sat together in the living room, huddled in front of the fireplace with blankets wrapped around their shoulders and piping cups held in their hands. Leo scooched closer to his Mother and put his head on her shoulder. They were going to be strong, together. Tea was the answer now, whatever had happened to Gianna, tea was sure to make it better.

Leo walked swiftly down the hall, holding a cup of tea in each hand and watching his footing so as not to spill. When he found the sleeping chambers again Skye was outside, leaning against the wall and staring at the floor.

“She alright?” Leo knew she wasn’t, he felt a little stupid for asking, but mostly he wanted to know if she’d stopped crying. Skye shook her head slowly.

“She was able to tell me, it took me a little while to understand,  she wasn’t talking very well, but it was her Mom that called. H-her,” She paused and blinked rapidly “her Dad died last night.” Leo watched Skye with wide eyes. He pulled his hands closer to his chest, feeling the heat seep from the cups and warm his chilled skin. They stood there for a moment, feeling the cold tension seeping from under Gianna’s door and wallowing in the empathic pain they both felt.

“I’ll give her the tea now,” Leo whispers and Skye steps away from the door, before realizing the young man has his hands full and opens the door for him. Fitz watches his footing, not because he’s overly worried about spilling anymore, but because he can’t come to looking up at the wreck on the bed. He shuffles over the end table and sets down the steaming cup. While the kettle came to a boil he sought out Gianna’s favored cup, the one with the quote “As you wish” from the Princess Bride. He had been nearby when she unpacked belongings sent from home after breaking free of the zombie state that she came to them in. Her door had been open when Leo passed by, muttering to himself about the tasks he had to do, trying to keep them fresh in his mind so he wouldn’t forget. He had some problems with forgetting.

 

He paused in front of the opened door, repeating his mental list over and over. Gianna turned and stepped silently into the entry way, favorite mug in hand and confusion spread on her face. They were both quieter in those days, not that they had improved much until now. When Fitz finally noticed the figure in the threshold he fell silent.

“Hi,” He hadn’t come face to face with the girl in the videos yet. She looked so different. There were dark circles under her eyes, her hair was a bit greasy near the roots and her cheeks were hollow. The gleaming of her eyes he saw in the tapes was long gone, burned away underground and forgotten by her. She dipped her head in return and watched him. She couldn’t be bothered with much of an external reaction, but internally she found his accent endearing. With only one word to go off of she mistook his accent for Irish, the mistake brought back pleasant memories of her favorite Irish aunt who enthusiastically celebrated Saint Patrick’s Day every year. On instinct upon finding a comforting memory for the first time in far too long, Gianna smiled.

Fitz misread her smile and thought it was towards him; in turn he beamed at her. It was odd, to feel suddenly comfortable because of just a small uplifting of the lips, but he chose not to overthink it.

“I-I nice cup,” He meant to say “I like your cup, it’s nice” but his mouth chose another route.

“Thanks, it is my favorite movie,” Gianna returned, feeling a little better at the compliment even if it was in broken English.

Assumption and miscommunication often time breaks people apart, but in an unlikely path, it allowed for a comfortable introduction between Gianna and Leo. But they were peculiar, odd people, who when it comes to most likely scenarios should have been dead, drowned or bled out in the cold. Yet there they were, looking at each other, both faintly smiling and feeling a not too distance form of contentment, even if it was for just a brief moment.

 

“I brought you some tea,” Leo says and lifts his cup to his mouth, blowing on the surface softly before taking a small sip. It makes him think of home. He can almost smell the perfume his mother wears in the air. Tea is a magic thing.

Gianna says nothing. He doesn’t want to look at her, he feels afraid, of what he doesn’t feel like admitting. But it is inevitable, eventually he looks up and sees his fears come to life. She’s back to what she was when they first met, hollow and cold, unfeeling and barren of color. Just when her color, the color of a sunset Leo likes to think, was coming back into her body it was all sucked back out. His mouth opens around something comforting to say but his mind lags behind, still reeling at how grey she’s become in just minutes. His hands fill in the space between mind and mouth and lift the cup back to his lips.

She’s starring at the brick well her bed is pushed up against like it is a window, maybe in her mind eye’s it is. Pretending to see anything but reality is easier sometimes. That reminds Leo that other Jemma hasn’t made a reappearance in a little while; maybe it is because there’s finally a moment where he’s not at least partially devoting some part of his conscious to Simmons. That’s a first in a very long time.

Fitz stands for a while longer, caught between leaving Gianna alone in her hole of misery or continuing with her- unsure every moment if he’s doing the right thing. He sits down on the end opposite of where she sits on the bed before his mind can dizzy him more. He holds his Grumpy Cat mug between his knees and grabs Gianna’s mug from her table and hands it to her. She doesn’t move her head from its place resting against the rough brick but numbly takes it from him, resting it against her chest just as he did in the hallway. She lifts it to her face but does not drink, only slowly breathes in the gallimaufry of scents fusing in the hot water.

 

Gianna isn’t one for hot drinks, hot chocolate on winter nights and lemon water when she had a cold as a teenager was as far as her tastes went. But this tea was comforting; unknown to her it is the same sort of lemon herbal tea her Mother drinks on an almost daily basis. She holds it and smells the drink for a while before scooching across the bed to put her head on Fitz’s shoulder. Neither of them truly expected that, not even Gianna who made the movement really intended it. She needed to be touched, and Fitz was there. Though she probably wouldn’t have done it with anybody else but him. He stiffens momentarily before pulling his arm away from her for a second and then wrapping it around her back. Gianna pulls into the sideways hug and rests the top of her head against his neck.

They sit silently. Fitz slowly drinks his tea, Gianna lets hers go cold in her hands. Not only is there no need for words, but there are no words to be spoken that could help the situation more than a good hug could not do.

 

The next afternoon Gianna wakes up alone in her bed, her still full mug on the bedside table next to her lamp, now joined by the novel she left behind in the briefing room, and no recollection of the previous day’s events. For one minute there is bliss, other than the awful taste in her mouth from not brushing her teeth in twelve hours it is a nice minute. Then there is confusion, it feels late, but is it still in the early morning or very late at night? She sits up slowly, woozy from dehydration. Then the first tendrils of remembrance creep into her mind before it explodes in a flurry of pain and remorse. She lays back down and allows herself to cry for a while.

There are few options. She has to go home, attend the funeral and bury the best man she’s ever known. It doesn’t feel like he’s gone, right now she doesn’t know the difference between living with her father far away and him being dead. It feels more like the first day of SHIELD training, when she had to leave home for six months with little contact with her parents. She’d never been away from them for more than a week and never lived on her own. It was scary without her support system, even for half a year. Now she’ll being living the rest of her life with half a family.

Mechanically, and only because she knows it is her only choice, Gianna raises herself up and shuffles towards her closet. She sheds the outer layers damp with the cold sweats that tortured her during the night and most of the morning and throws them in the bottom of the closet. Underwear is exchanged for new and she pulls on a grey T-shirt, her favorite, and a pair of jeans. She’s already leaving her room for the communal washroom when Gianna remembers that there is nothing on her feet.

“Shoes are the most important thing to wear, as soon as you have them off you’ll hurt yourself.” Her Father always said. Gianna stops midway to grabbing her tennis shoes, they sit just below the rim of her bed, to think about that. Papa always had his boots on, she thinks to herself and fondly remembers the day he bought her matching boots to his own. She was thirteen, just a twig of a girl, and overjoyed to get tall boots that would protect her shins on the motorcycle. Little rocks and other debris always managed to fly up when they were speeding down the highway and smack her legs, and even with heavy jeans on there would be little bruises scattered across her flesh. He always took her out on his motorcycle on Saturday mornings, it was their form of father-daughter therapy and bonding after a week of tiresome school and work.

She’d never get another ride with him again.

 

It was four-thirty when a knock rattled Coulson’s door to his office. He turned his desk chair and knew who it was by the abnormally hunched silhouette alone. He’d expected her to appear sooner.

“Come in,” He says and stands up, feeling pity for the young girl who’s gone through enough hardship in the last year and half for a dozen people. Skye came to him after Fitz brought Gianna tea and told him what she knew. He had lost his father in the last couple of years and felt her pain in his own heart.

“Agent Bosko,” He greets and ushers her to sit before him in the guest’s chair. She nods her head and takes her place, looking at him intensely.

“I must make a request of you sir.”

“And that is?” He tilts his head to the sit as he lowers back into the chair, folding his hands in his lap.

“I need some time off from work to return home and bury my Pa-Father.” She’s never called him anything but Papa but that is too personal to say here, and yet Father seems distant and almost uncaring, like a title and not a name she’s spoken since birth with unconditional love.

“How long will you be needing?”

“A week, I know that is longer than my contract-“

“Done.”

“Thank you.” She stands and waits for a sign she’s excused.

“Agent Bosko, Gianna, we’re all dreadfully sorry for you loss.” Phil stands, looking eye to eye with the girl who refuses to share any sign of pain with him. Her stare is shielded, unyielding of emotion. She’s professional to say the least.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’ll arrange for a dispatch plane to take you to your destination, but I’d like if you were joined by a companion.”

“Sir?”

“Just as a look out, HYDRA may be dwindling in numbers, and we’ve hit them where it hurts plenty of times but it doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge price on every remaining SHIELD agent. You being dead would mean great gain for our enemies, and a huge loss for us. Please, let me send an ally with you.” Gianna nods once, even though she’d like to make this trip home alone, the Director makes a good point. She’s compromised and her senses are muddled, without an extra set of eyes it could be a repeat of her last encounter with HYDRA. There is no way she’ll let that happen again.

Gianna’s jaw tightens and she straightens her back, feeling every scar and reminder of her time in the locker. Coulson’s eyes flicker over her tense body and know she’s remembering, or trying not to.

“Dismissed,” He sits back down as she bolts to the exit.

 

It is seven o’clock the same day when the plane, the pilot, and the passengers are ready to leave. Melinda May sit in the cockpit, starting up the plane and readying for liftoff. She’s just finished an aggravating “discussion” with Coulson that felt more like an old couple spat than anything else. May figured Bosko would need time off when the news of her Father began circulating the ranks.

“She’s compromised-“

“And the rest of us aren’t?”

“I’m not saying that!” May protests and stalks across the room towards Coulson, huffing like an angered bull. He grits his teeth and folds his arms, a sure sign he’s becoming defensive. “I’m saying she needs to be relieved of activity duty because she is not in a good state of mind. This is of no fault of her own but Agent Bosko is not in a good mental state.”

“I believe that is for her psychiatrist to decide, not you Agent May. I think you’re crossing a line here.”

“So you think she’s fine? That you can send her off into the field after she’s been tortured by the worst of HYDRA, after she’s inadvertently killed three other agents in that bunker and now that her Father’s died after all of that? There is no way any person wouldn’t need some recuperation time after a family member dies much less after they’ve experiences massive trauma.” She throws her arms to the side stiffly, looking at Coulson like’s his lost his head.

“I know all of this May, but I’m not going to send her away, this base is the safest place for her. And it isn’t like she was truly on active duty before this either, she was on light work around here, I was purposefully delaying any ops in the field on purpose.”

“You could have told me that,” May grumbles.

“Well you know now.”

“She won’t be going on her own will she? Even though it is a personal trip she needs backup.”

“Way ahead of you, Fitz is going with her.”

“Fitz?! He’s almost as bad as she is Coulson. Why would you pair them together?”

“I didn’t.”

 

“Volunteered,” May huffs under her breath. Fitz must have reached a new breaking point to have volunteered to go with Bosko. There isn’t much she can do, Coulson has made it clear he’s exercising his new power as Director and Melinda has little to say about the matter. “They better not die,” She hears the first one come aboard the “mini bus” as Skye’s come to call the small plane.

 

Gianna doesn’t remember slowly falling asleep against Fitz, weighed down with emotions and pain, she doesn’t recall him slipping her cold cup from her fingers and setting it on the end table. But Fitz does. He remembers every moment of slowly positioning her on her bed, pulling a blanket around her body as she shrunk into the fetal position. He’ll remember the soft “muh” noise she made when he loosened off her tennis shoes and set them bust below the edge of her bed.

He sits now strapped into the back of the jet, holding his duffle bag of clothes and other necessitates tightly. This will be the first time he’s left home base other than to get Starbucks since Simmons left. Although he’s trying to let go she’s sitting next to him, strapping herself in with the polyester webbing belts that dangle off of the back wall.

“This is very noble of you Fitz, going with her when she needs you most.” Jemma grins and tries to slip her hand in his.

“I’m not doing this for me,” He says and pulls his hand away from the illusion, throwing a glance at May to see if she’s heard him. Surprisingly she seems to be having a conversation of her own in the cockpit and Fitz relaxes. He closes his eyes and breathes through his mouth, only parted a little bit, and then out his nose smoothly.

Gianna steps into the open hatch and stares at Fitz for a moment before entering. She deliberately takes a seat across from him, unsure at first what he’s doing here. He should be in his lab, working on his engineering stuff and talking to himself like always. She feels ashamed of last night, how tightly she clung to him, it felt inappropriate now- completely unprofessional, an invasion of his space. Her skin has hardened since yesterday night, she refuses to think deeply on what’s happened, she can’t be weak. It isn’t an option.

“You’re coming with?” It dawns on her. Coulson’s sent him with, but why? She suspected May, maybe Tripp or Mack, but never Fitz. It isn’t that he’s weak, alright yes even she could best him in any sparring match, but really he doesn’t seem ready to be put in a potential front line.

He nods. She clicks the buckles together without looking at him. She’s mad; it is as simple as that. May clicks some buttons in the front and the hatch to Gianna’s right slowly closes and is followed up by the hiss of it locking.

“Liftoff in three,” May lifts her microphone on her headset in front of her mouth “two,“-Fitz shifts uncomfortably in his seat “One.” Finally Gianna looks back at him. He feels cold under her stare. Her eyes are dark, shadowed by her knit brow. Agent Bosko finally takes her eyes off the confused and intimidates Fitz when she feels like he’s had enough, although he has no clue what he’s done wrong she believes he has learned his lesson. Gianna pulls “The Goose Girl” from her bag and starts to read while Fitz dumbly plays with his Tablet, busying himself with blueprints and other odds and ends.

The tension in the back creeps up the back of Melinda’s neck, making her hair stand up on end. She hasn’t felt this sort of strain since she last saw Mockingbird and Hunter in the same room. There was almost pity for clueless Fitz in her heart, but it was rubbed out by the stupidity of his volunteering.

Although the flight lasts only two hours it is a rough ride, Gianna refuses to talk with Fitz even though he tries to spur her to speak more than once, and Melinda doesn’t have anything she feels like contributing. Leo decides that she is still grieving and just like last night isn’t in a talkative mood, even though this silence doesn’t differ much from their regular status when they’re together. But the sharpness of her movements and the cold in her gaze makes Fitz fidgety, he wants to talk, like that might ease the chilly air.

Gianna refuses to cooperate.

 

May turns on the cloaking element on as they fly over more populous areas and near Gianna’s hometown. It is late in the day, almost dark even at nine o’clock. Late spring in the Midwest is a beautiful time of year, before the mosquitos make their evil entrance and the sun decides to become a scorching star of death in the sky that’s only purpose is to to dehydrate the crops and give everyone a sunburn. It was dusk when they arrived, the world work cast in a bruise blue shadow and drowning in the last glimmer of the sun. It would have been beautiful if the flyers had taken notice. May was finding a place to land near a field while the two passengers ignored each other.

The craft shivered midair before dropping three feet onto the ground, giving everyone a little jolt. They were on the edge of a cornfield, the plants were barley four inches tall and green as a neon crayon. Half a mile away from the first signs of the town, far enough away to land undetected and close enough not to anger the Cabbie who would be picking them up.

“I will see you here in a week, remember to call for backup if anything happens.” May says and gets up from her seat, the others are unbuckling and grabbing their bags off the floor, both nodding as she speaks. Gianna swings her backpack over one shoulder and pushes the side hatch open, stepping out into the prickly grass next to the field. Old weeds the hue of dried hay bristles underfoot and pokes at her shoes, trying to scratch her ankles. Fitz stumbles over the threshold and catches himself before he can face plant on the spiny ground. Gianna’s frown deepens as she makes her way towards the highway to wait for the cab that should be arriving momentarily.

“Watch yourself,” May says and Fitz turns towards her, concern etching his features. He casts his eyes downwards with a small nod before turning away and following Bosko like a wounded puppy. She stands at the edge of the highway, shoulders thrown back stiffly with her feet together, a military stance that screams “don’t mess with me”.  May starts up the plane and flies off, throwing up a cloud of dust as the cloaked ship takes off. Fitz stands for a while before sitting down on the slopping ditch. The tough ground doesn’t feel very nice to sit on, but his legs feel funny from the vibrations of their ride and he doesn’t feel up to standing stoically for who knows how long until the cab shows up. They don’t speak to one another.

Fitz wriggles on the ground, moving about trying to find a comfortable position while Gianna grinds her teeth- a habit she thought she’d outgrown. A semi-truck passes by at an ungodly speed, spraying them bits of rock and gravel it throws up as it passes. They’ve only been outside five minutes and it is dark as pitch, the last visibility in the blue world has disintegrated. Gianna is choking on the cold air, her lungs prick with the fresh air and the expanse of the darkness overwhelms her. She stiffens her shaking knees and tries not to collapse from the panic that suddenly fills her.

Fitz pulls his tablet out the duffle bag resting against his side and turns it on, filling up the space around him with a white glow.

“Turn that off,” Bosko hisses and turns towards him like she might tackle him. Startled he drops it down the ditch and has to chase after it to turn the screen off. “If someone sees the light they might get curious,” Is the only explanation she offers. He grumbles to himself while brushing debris off his jeans and tucks the tablet back into his bag. He’s starting to think he shouldn’t have joined her, obviously she’s upset with him- or is it just the prospect of the funeral? He sits with his back to her, right in the same spot he was in before with the same blasted rocks wearing against his jeans. The headlights of a small car are not too far off; it’s about time for blasted cab to be here.

“Are you mad at me?” He asks after a while. She stiffens. Gianna thinks she’s much better at concealing her emotions than she truly is. The silence grows ever heavier.

“You should have never come,” She turns her head just far enough to look at him, to let her heart sink as he shrinks into himself. That was mean. She doesn’t want to apologize. He shouldn’t be here, she’s right about that, it’s dangerous here in the real world for a boy with only one good hand and a brain that doesn’t cooperate with his body. He hides it well, almost well enough for her not to catch on, but she knows he sees things that aren’t there. It’s a weakness, simple as that, and out here there is no room for error.

The Taxi pulls up and the lights inside turn on, a man flicks a cigarette butt out of his cracked window before opening the driver’s door.

“You the kids on da phone?” His accent is thick, almost Canadian; Gianna guesses he must have moved here recently. She nods and moves her bag off her shoulder and into her hand; he leads her around to the back of the car to put away the bags. Fitz shies away from her, going all the way around the car so he doesn’t have to risk eye contact. Her pride got in the way again, it’s too late to apologize, even if she thinks she’s right.

The cabbie jumps back into the front seat and turns down the radio that surprisingly hums a Taylor Swift tune. He glances in the rearview mirror to see if they’ve noticed; their expressions are unreadable.

“Where to?”

“Gorman, house 104,” Gianna instructs.

“You mind if I have a smoke?” He’s already lifting a cig to his lips, lighter in the other hand.

“Yes,” She growls. He hesitates before dropping both into the full ashtray. He must not be registered with any legitimate taxi service, no one reputable would allow behavior like this, Gianna thinks. Leo has his forehead leant against the cold window, the glass slowly warming against his skin. His eyes focus on the breath fogging up the glass, revealing a thousand little fingerprints marring the surface.

 

Jeffery Hart has driven a lot of people in his life, some really weird ones too- like the guy who took his glass eye out during his trip and cleaned it for forty-five minutes straight. Or the woman who kept raving about her boyfriend and how she was gonna kill him with a harpoon when she got home. None of the trips however had been so absolutely nerve racking as this one. The girl, the one with deep green eyes he noticed even in the dark night, was too stiff- like she’d been trained in the military and couldn’t let go of the attentive stance. Only her eyes moved, mostly to glance at the young kid to her left who starred out at the passing fields like a depressed teenager. Jeffery ran a lot of different scenarios of how the odd couple ran into each other, one that was a bit of a paradox: both outrageous and seemingly fitting, was that the girl had kidnapped the boy and was holding him for ransom. Jeffery figured he was rich, mostly by his hair cut for some reason, and that his Daddy would pay a pretty penny to get him back.

In the end he just felt spooked out from the tension between the two. If he could have severed it with a knife he would have done it as quickly as possible before it wrapped around his neck and choked him. Not only was the tension weird but where he picked them up was the oddest place. He’d been out of town for people before, but mostly for those who had last buses or had a car break down. But this was scheduled, he had to be there right at 9:25, and there they were- one standing like a ghost at the edge of the road and the other curled up in the ditch. Jeffery would be happy when they were out of his taxi and he could light up a Camel.

 

The street was dead when they arrived. Bedroom lights dimly illuminated the drawn shades and the sidewalks were cast in an eerie grey glow from the streetlamps. Gianna noticed the bulbs in the streetlamps had changed from a natural light, near that of a candle flame, to something almost like florescent. She hated it. Only one porch lamp was one, _104_ painted on the round glass orb inside of the screened porch. Her stomach lurched. She could smell her house already, her mother’s nightgowns and Papa’s rolling tobacco he kept under the couch on the porch. She could taste hard boiled eggs and Lucky Charms for breakfast. The Egyptian cotton sheets she had to leave behind when Fury put her into boot camp called from the linen closet, her favorite fox socks that got forgotten from her luggage. Gianna forgot about Fitz and leaned towards the side of the street her house was on, the side of the car Fitz was positioned in.

He glanced sideways at her, upset from the proximity and a bit confused. Leo followed her gaze to a two story house in the middle of the block. It was painted yellow with brown trim, the front was dominated by a screened in porch fitted with a puffy couch and little hanging things hung in the windows he couldn’t quite make out yet.

“Stop here,” Gianna whispered. Jeffery pulled over to the side of the street, just outside 104. She pulled a card Coulson gave her from her side pocket and handed it to the cabbie, he swiped it through his little machine and handed it back. She was already leaping out of the car before he could open the glove box to pop the trunk. Fitz had to jog to keep up with Bosko’s long legs as she raced towards home, towards safety, towards a mother who could lie and say everything would be alright.

She bounded up the front steps, threw open the screen door and lunged at the front door- then stopped. Gianna’s hand hovered above the round little handle. Fitz was trying to get the screen closed before he noticed she’d paused. He looks over her, not understanding.

“I can’t do it,” Why does she chose these words? Why does she hurt him, push him away, only to break his heart with empathy? “I can’t go inside Leo.” He stands there. Why can’t he say anything? But what is there to say? “You don’t have much of an option; we’ve come all this way.” Sees a little insensitive. Instead he comes forward, puts his fingers on top of hers and presses down on the knob. Instinctively her hand curls around the knob and turns to the right, he pushed against the door for her.

A woman stands in the archway between the living room and the dining room, dressed in jeans and a “Nebraska Huskers” sweatshirt. Her hands are held together near her throat as she watches wide eyed, tears glittering like diamonds at the corners. She’s got the same deep green, blue ringed eyes Gianna has. This is unmistakably her mother. If Gianna had short, cropped red hair they would be clones of different ages.

“Hi Mama,” Gianna whispers. The woman chokes on what is a mix of a sob and a laugh and rushes forward, arms out and tears streaming down her face. Mother and daughter embrace for the first time in months. Fitz stares at the floor, uncomfortable and out of place, until Gianna’s mother, Julia, notices him.

“Oh, oh hello,” She says and releases Gianna from her arms. Julia wipes the tears off on the backs of her hands and laughs nervously. “I’m Julia,” She extends a hand towards Fitz.

“Leo Fitz, nice to meet you mam’.” Julia smiles at him and glances back at Gianna who stares at her, eyes shining.

“Well, why don’t you too come inside and we can set up beds,” Julia leads the way inside and Fitz’s eyes roam around the front rooms. The living room is cozy, with a couch on the back wall and one to his left, just next to the front door. A large TV takes up most of glory in the room where it sits atop an old wooden chest Gianna’s Father made decades ago. It is a simple home, the walls a light cream and floorboards a Chesnutt brown. Julia heads up the steps to the right of the front door that leads to the second story and the others follow.

At the top of the steps, to the left, is a small hallway with three shut doors. Julia goes and opens the only one on the left side of the hall and lets Gianna inside. She stops in the entrance, her head turning every which way as she absorbs home. She feels so comfortable, almost safe which is almost a forgotten feeling, in her bedroom- the place she spent most of her time for the first decade and a half of her life. Her mother hasn’t changed a thing, other than making the bed. Under her desk is still a small shelf filled with diaries and notebooks, plans of a fantastical future full of traveling and spoiling her wanderlust. Her tall bookshelf at the end of her bed is still overflowing with stuffed animals and dozens of novels, though they’re all a little dusty now.

She steps forward and brushes her fingers against the bamboo screen that separates her bed from the rest of the room, inspecting the thin lace scarves she draped across it so long ago. Little paper dragons and butterflies taped to the wall catch her eye and make her think of her teenage friends, how they used to stay up late binge watching television shows and writing about adventures they’d all have together some day.

“Leo, would you help me get some more pillows and blankets from the basement? I want to set up the fold out couch for you,” Julia asks and Fitz nods, following her downstairs and putting his bag next to the couch she dictates folds out into a bed. They go down into the basement and gather a couple pillows and a blanket. Gianna doesn’t come back downstairs. Julia has Leo pull the couch into a flat position and then she puts on a fitted sheet followed by the blanket. When the bed is made she stops and looks at him, she looks lost.

“I’ve always suspected something happened to her, when SHIELD fell all those months ago, but I never knew what. She never called. I only got a message from an Agent Coulson assuring me that she was being taken care of.” Julia reached out a hand and placed it on Leo’s shoulder. Her eyes brimmed with tears again. “Something’s changed my daughter. Please, tell me what happened to her.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, please leave a comment if you enjoyed it! I love interacting with my readers n-n


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